With the growth of Facebook and Linkedin, two alternate advertising platforms have emerged for local businesses. And if your not helping your clients leverage these platforms then you are leaving a huge hole in your marketing service.

Here is the breakdown:

– Facebook Advertising: If the business is social (i.e. A coffee shop) then social advertising is probably a good idea.

– Linkedin Advertising: If the business is B2B (business selling to other businesses) then Linkedin is probably a platform worth trying. PSSST….. hey you, if your an offline consultant, this is a good platform for you to try.

– Google Adwords: With places integration into Adwords you now have even more local advertising power. This is a critical new tool for local businesses. Leverage places / maps as much as possible.

So, A few questions for you:

Are you currently offering paid advertising?

Do you know at least one of these platforms?

Would your current clients benefit from paid advertising?

QUESTION: But Robert, How Do You Charge For This?

That is a great question. Many “agencies” charge a percentage of “ad spend”. So if they charged 20% and the company that is advertising spends $5,000, then the management fee would be $1,000. But I don’t follow this method.

Typically, local businesses spend less than $1,000 a month. Obviously this depends upon the level of competition and the cost-per-click (CPC). Anyway, I tend to charge a flat monthly fee that scales based upon an overall management package. With a minimum of $200 a month to manage paid advertising campaigns.

So…This is your fair warning!

You need to jump on the bandwagon…and the data is all here to prove that paid advertising is here to stay and growing. It is time to get familiar and start offering paid advertising services my friend. Stay tuned for the next post as I go into greater detail about each of these advertising platforms.

I find local business advertising on Facebook works well and is much cheaper than Google, but, recently I decided to give Bing and Yahoo a try. I liked the Fb results, Bing appears to be working for older demographics and non techie consumers.

FREE,FREE,FREE and i am sick of hearing that word . Become an expert on Googles admob platform and 2/3 other mobile platforms . Learn how to design banner ads on these platforms then send them to your clients mobilized website at .o5 cents a click . They will absolutely love you and that is where the marketing world is going .As the rock band THE WHO sang it “GOING MOBILE’ is where its at !
Frank

Adwords – I wouldn’t have a business without it. Most people are scared of it because of the horror stories. What most people don’t know is that you can limit the area your ad is shown over – you can make it local!
I started a business last december with my nephew. Almost all our business has come from adwords – it’s local and it’s seasonal but we are still busy! Everyone else is quiet. Yes, it costs money , but not having any work costs even more.
There is no better way than a good adwords campaign for getting ‘instant’ results.
It is also the best keyword tool in my opinion. Limit your budget , make it local , get good at it .

I think the majority of local business consultants are either newbies or intermediates with little success in internet marketing. Either way, trying to figure out every aspect of online marketing is a formula for crash and burn results. I know, I tried to do this over the last 18 months and learned a ton, but made very little.
If PPC is where the value is now, it makes more sense to become expert at it and focus on giving great service, while beginning to develop a whole new skill set at the same time.
The worst move is trying to figure it all out, getting to little to no results. Remember, there is always going to be a shiny new object every week, especially in the IM space, stay focused.

I hear you Robert but I just don’t feel like I have enough knowledge to run these PPC programs for someone else.

With some success, I’ve run a few of my own Facebook advertising campaigns but when it comes to Google Adwords, I’m a little scared. I know enough to know it can be very expensive to learn the lessons of Google Adwords.

Robert is an Internet Entrepreneur, Product Creator and Consultant who specializes in online lead generation.
He has started and sold several online businesses, developed software, built sales funnels, launches and trained thousands of marketing consultants around the world.
You can learn more here